


the grandeur of the dooms (we have imagined for the mighty dead)

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [225]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Been wanting to write this for a while, Fevers, Gen, Heavy-duty identity crises, In the Healing Tent, title from Keats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23765767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: He is alone in the tent, with Maedhros.
Relationships: Anairë/Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Fingon | Findekáno, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Gwindor, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [225]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	the grandeur of the dooms (we have imagined for the mighty dead)

“The first time,” Fingon says bitterly. “That was the first time he has moved, since we brought him back.”

And this is the first time Fingon has spoken in cold anger, which is a poor attempt to belie the guilt he confessed hours before. A great deal has happened, since, of course. A great many ghosts have come and gone.

But now, the vomited broth soils the edge of the blanket. Fingolfin helps to turn it down, and when this is done, he hands Fingon the flask of water that they have been using to soothe Maedhros’ cracked lips.

“Try this,” he suggests. And then, when Fingon’s hands are not shaking, he adds, “You told me once that he had delicate digestion. Is that not so?”

“I did?” (Voice shaking, rather than hands.)

“Yes. You had been requisitioning your grandmother’s supplies, I think.”

Fingon’s hand closes around the flask. His eyes flutter closed. Fingolfin searches for tears along the blunt dark lashes—their faces being quite close to one another, as it is—and does not find any.

“I tried my best to save his health.” Fingon sighs, then opens his eyes, bright in the lantern-light. “What a success I made of it!”

Fingolfin knows too well the sound of hopelessness, and the shape it takes in the voices of his two (living) sons. He clears his throat, but Gwindor speaks first, unexpectedly.

“He talked of you,” Gwindor says. He is, under Fingon’s orders, grinding feverfew in the mortar-and-pestle that Turgon whittled, not so long ago. “There. Called you the best doctor he knew.”

“You see?” Fingolfin urges softly, although a weight descends on him once again, watching his son’s heart break. “He depends on you. No matter what he suffered, he depended on you, Fingon. See the present for what it is: he is not ready for the broth, yet. But he has taken the water.”

“Aye,” Gwindor growls. “Listen to your father, lad. Buck up.”

Fingon nods, his lips pressed tight together, and administers the flask again.

Fingolfin glances at Gwindor in silent thanks. Fingon is quick with trust and word and bond, and he and Maedhros’ friend from enslavement seem to have become as close as brothers in a matter of days.

Life can offer pain in an instant; why not also gifts?

Fingolfin muses on this, and does not partake of his son’s cold anger. Nor does he feel the rush of loyal rage that has come over Fingon, time and again, whenever Maedhros’ brothers are near.

No, Fingolfin does not feel anger at all.

(It will come.)

He covers the pot of broth and returns it to the fire, so as to keep it warm. Across the lake, which the dying sun stains red, Maedhros’ brothers are frightened, fatherless boys. That is all Fingolfin can think of now. He thought it too, when he sent them away.

_No, Maglor. He is safer here. Come again in the morning, or make your bed among us._

A choice that was not a choice. Not for Feanor’s sons.

 _You call them boys_ , he chides himself. _Ought not you treat them as men, if only out of respect for the dead?_

Maglor was—Fingolfin has all but lost count, but he does not think that Maglor is _older_ than twenty-three. That is a man, certainly, but not all men were made for suffering.

And even if they were, who would wish it on them?

“Father,” Fingon calls, from inside the tent. “I think he’s turning feverish again.”

Indeed, Fingolfin finds that Maedhros’s forehead is hot and dry. They bathe him with cool water, as night rolls in. Gwindor’s eyes are falling shut, but he growls through his treacherous yawns as if he means to fight them.

Fingolfin must convince both of them to rest. He puzzles over the problem. He has not eaten much himself, nor has he slept, but he is too tired for either sleeping or eating. Anaire would come in, at a time like this, count the grey threads of his hair, and send him to bed. She would take his newspaper away, if he had one.

He wonders what Anaire would do if she saw a quarter of the ugly scars. If she saw, for one, Maedhros’ poor shoulder, deeply flayed and seared.

It had made Fingon gasp and turn away, uncontrolled for a moment. A boy, for a moment.

Fingon was trying—trying so very much—to be a doctor, here.

Fingolfin is trying to be what he already is—a father—and to be what he was never been:

Enough.

If Maglor returns tomorrow (and Fingolfin prays he will), a truce may be reached. On the other side of that truce is Feanor’s fort, perhaps; four walls, a roof, and safety. The long-dreamed hope, turned all to stone.

 _We will not find you there, brother_ , Fingolfin breathes, speaking to his own obstinate ghost. _But see? We have found your son again. Your Maedhros._

“Father.”

He blinks. Here again are the smoky shadows under canvas; the smell of blood, rags, and earth. A whiff of wheat, also. There are sacks of grain heaped in the corners. One serves Maedhros as a pillow.

“Yes, Fingon?”

“You should sleep.” The square jaw (his). The deep eyes (Anaire’s). The matted hair, still unwashed. Anaire would have words for that, too.

“No, no,” Fingolfin answers. He turns his head to sweep Gwindor under his gaze, too. “Sleep is far from my eyes. Let us take watches. I’ll have the first, and then Fingon”—because this is the most he can hope for—“and Gwindor last?”

“I don’t want to leave him,” Fingon says.

At the same moment, Gwindor says, “I’ll not leave him.”

Fingolfin feels a more familiar strain of weariness. “Please,” he says, spreading his hands over his dusty knees. “As much as we need to have our eyes upon him, he does not need all three of us to hover like hawks. He needs us to be _useful_. Fingon, I will wake you if his fever worsens.”

They both eye him suspiciously. Gwindor’s age is hard to discern, and he looks nothing like Fingon, but there is nearly identical rebellion in their eyes.

So much for an alliance with one against the other.

It must be—it must be because it is night. That must have meaning, for them. Meaning drawn from what they saw in darkness.

“The lad has nightmares,” Gwindor says, half-guessing the thought. “Have you seen them?”

Maedhros’ handless arm lies outside the coverlet. Fingon checks the bandage every hour. “I have not,” Fingolfin says calmly.

“Father, he—”

“He would not want me? Perhaps not. But if he is to have you, you should be clean. Fed. Clear-headed. Gwindor, were he not as—”

_—as blind with loyalty—_

They are all doomed, aren’t they? To love others too much.

_I will not find you, brother._

“Were he not as resolved as you are, he would counsel the same,” Fingolfin finishes.

Gwindor shrugs, unreadable. “Maybe I would. I’m no doctor, though. I needn’t be clear-headed. Just—here.”

“And I’ll sleep in the corner, Father. Really I will.”

Fingolfin drops his head in his hands. _No harm_ , promises the two-handed, full-bodied, pain-stricken boy— _no harm shall come to Fingon because of me._

“Fingon,” says a voice, breaking into Fingolfin’s reverie. A new voice—but a familiar one. Wachiwi. She speaks through the flap. “Come out and have your supper. Your brother and sister wish to see you, too, since you are alive a second day.”

Fingon shakes his head tightly.

“I know you are there,” Wachiwi says, still low. “Come out. I won’t shout, but I will drag you.”

“Fingon,” Fingolfin says. “Supper, at least. Maedhros would want you to eat.”

“He never ate himself, unless I made him,” Fingon mutters.

“True enough,” Gwindor says, sighing.

The scales tip. Fingon pushes himself to his feet, though his eyes stay trained on Maedhros. Haunted eyes. They were little children once; loved and guarded as such.

Who can say what the future holds?

“There’s a good cowboy,” Wachiwi says, when Fingon passes outside the tent.

Fingolfin and Gwindor are left alone, one on either side of Maedhros. So it was when the Feanorians came. But Gwindor listened, then. He must have grasped the gravity of what he watched.

The sight of Maglor on his hands and knees—Curufin, white-faced as Feanor was when he held the gun in his hand—

Not to mention Celegorm.

Fingolfin raises a hand. “I’ll not force you out all night,” he says. “But if I can fall on your mercy, take an hour. Keep my son away from here.”

Gwindor’s face is cragged, lined with pain and the memory of it. “Why?”

“Because,” Fingolfin answers quietly, realizing the truth only as he speaks it, “I need to weep for my nephew, and I cannot rightly do that, before my son.”

_You have your wish._

He is alone in the tent, with Maedhros.

 _You have your wish_ , Gwindor said, with a twist of his lips that was understanding.

Fingolfin is already on his knees. Already stooped low. He lowers himself further. He rests one hand lightly above the boy’s knee, and turns his face into his shoulder.

If he weeps like this, let it at least be silent.

At night, he is a lonely child again. No wife; no guiding hand. No certainty. A failed father, also, for one of his children is in an early grave.

Argon makes him weep, both for his own sake and for Maedhros’. These little ones…they were men whom suffering found early. Even a broken spirit, as Maglor has, does not quite touch the wrongs of a mangled body.

Argon’s breaking, though deadly, was not cast in particular malice.

But what is one to think of a body marked with its father’s name, a foul curse, and dozens more wounds besides?

Fingolfin could not have known, of course, that Maedhros keeps his body still when he wakes. The knee under his hand did not move a hair.

“ _Athair_?”

(He never held Feanor’s perfect firstborn, the baby whom even Finwe had to beg for—

The first time he felt power of any kind, over any Feanorian, was when he threatened Maedhros not on his own account, but with the loss of _Fingon_.

Power, yes, but awful, cruel, and loathsome.)

“I—I—” Fingolfin stammers, terrified by a regret he cannot give voice to. It amounts to nothing, in the end, because Maedhros—

 _—smiles_ , through bruised and tattered lips.

“Oh, Athair,” he says again. Quite clearly, and too much himself for what would be ordinary comfort, if he was not…if _they_ were not… “I _knew_ it was all a dream. I knew…oh, _God_. Athair.” The sigh wracks him, but his eyes shine fever-brilliant, rising like silver suns beneath their bruised lids.

With his hand and his wrist, without regard for the inequality of the two as they now exist, he forces himself up from his bed. The gesture becomes a painful lurch, and Fingolfin can see the panicked agony rise in his ill-colored face. Fingolfin leans forward swiftly, catching the sharp elbows in his hands.

“Careful, Maedhros,” he says sternly, aping the manner of the absent father as best he can. Whose sin is that, to forgive? “You must have a care.”

He feels the tension ease in the boy’s bones. Maedhros’s head, the filthy hair far worse than Fingon’s unruly mop, lolls against Fingolfin’s breast.

Fingolfin crouches there, not moving, but for the fingers that card gently through the snarled knots.

“I’m sorry, Athair.”

“No matter.” (Crisply. God, how can he manage it?) “Here, ease your head back gently, or I fear it shall throb and ache.”

When this is done, he is careful to take the left hand and place it between both of his in a trickery of wholeness. This seems to please Maedhros. His thin fingers tighten around Fingolfin’s right palm.

Yes, _Maedhros_. Awake (or half-so), half-smiling, still, his grey eyes rimmed in red. The sight of him is grisly, raw, remembered.

(Fingolfin remembers the perfect firstborn.)

“It is good,” Maedhros whispers, still attempting to lean close. “Good to—see you like this. I—” He gasps in a breath that hurts him, but his gaze does not waver from its path up, up, up. “I knew they wouldn’t. I knew they couldn’t—not you, Athair. They couldn’t do that to _you_.”

Fingolfin clenches his jaw so hard he fears he shall crack the bones, leaving another task for Fingon’s busy hands. “No, my son,” he whispers in return. “They could not, I am sure. They could not do whatever—whatever you dreamed.”

Maedhros’ eyes fall shut, but not in sleep. Tears well up, and his face twists, revealing what swelling there still is. Revealing all the more vividly how ready his bones appear to cut through starved flesh and fragile skin.

Fingolfin does not let go of his hand. Fingolfin bends down and kisses his brow for a long moment.

“You would do me the greatest happiness…” Fingolfin begins, hoping to coax him to sleep, or to distract him long enough that he can fetch some clean rags for cooling his flushed cheeks.

But Maedhros is speaking again.

“It was all wrong— _how_ —but he had your ring. It was so _like_ your ring, and he—he touched me with it…oh, to forget— _please_ —”

“You _will_ forget, in time,” Fingolfin promises. He is telling lies, of course, and worse, he is telling lies that he does not understand. “For now, you must sleep again. It would give me such joy to see you sleep.”

“Would it?” Trust in Maedhros’ eyes, and fear. Trust, fear, and lies that Fingolfin may never—

“It would.” He wants to promise him Fingon, and all the rest of the world. But to do either would be to let the mask slip. And faced by this unmasked face—he cannot.

This betrayal is all he has to give.

“It shall not be different again?” Maedhros murmurs. His eyelids flag low; he scarcely moves his lips. The fever-dream—or fever-waking—passes. “You will be here?”

Another kiss to his brow. Another press of his only hand. “I will be here,” Fingolfin says—and that, at least, is only half a lie.

The lantern is graciously dim when Gwindor returns.

“Your boy is with his woman,” Gwindor says. “They’ll be a while. Thanks be, for the lad needs a moment’s distraction.”

Fingolfin says only, “His fever has broken again.”

Gwindor comes near; touches Maedhros’ forehead gently with a calloused hand. “The good kind, at least.”

“What?” Fingolfin has seen and killed the wild deer, of necessity, many times in the west. Now they have visited vengeance on him; he is trembling with their nervous desire for flight, for mad escape.

“The good kind of breaking,” Gwindor answers.

It is difficult, to look again at Maedhros, lost once more in an even-breathing stupor.

It is difficult to look anywhere else.


End file.
